First I am a political artist. I always have been. second my work comes from a deeply personal and emotional place. For the last few years my work has been about finding formal systems for investigating the emotional transitions of kinship.  sometimes in the literal sense but more often radiating from shared experience, whether that be trauma, joy, mourning, struggle, will, or love.  “I’ve been spending a lot of time with my direct  family and friends that i grew up with now that i have moved back to Los Angeles where i was born and raised.” At family cookouts,  holiday parties, old barber shops, I often find myself in situations where it is more comfortable to embrace the familiarity i have rather than take the opportunity to challenge the social political ideas in the space. My significant other recently  asked me why i talked different around my friends i grew up with. It’s often not just about race it’s kinship. How do you talk about politics at the dinner table after the 2016 election where we transitioned from the ending of the first black president to a president elected under a merging of new types of data driven social, and digital economies.

My last exhibition  “Them Boys” came out of thinking about comments made by Barack Obama  about sanctions placed on the sagging of mens pants. Obama is a man i feel a certain kind of kinship too. He reminds me of my mentors in college, my uncles, my father, men that maybe wanted the best for us but betrayed us through policing, through disapproval, through a lack of understanding. The “us” that I’m talking about are the men who’s pants sag. Believe it or not, i feel a kinship to them as well, and my work is this dinner table political, uncomfortable, conversation that i’m articulating formally. I wanted to treat the silhouette of pants sagging as a landscape, an arena where people where expressing their agendas regardless of whether they wanted to do harm or not.

Selected Exhibitions  

(Solo Exhibition) “Gravity”,  LA Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2019

(Solo Exhibition) Tin Flats Space, “Them Boys” Los Angeles CA, 2017

(Solo Exhibition) University of Wisconsin, “Them Boys” Los Angeles CA, 2018

(Solo Exhibition) A Thin Blue Line, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago IL 2016

A Fire That No Water Could Put Out,  The High Museum,  Atlanta GA 2018

Pump Fake curated by Awol Erizku. Stems Gallery, Brussels Belgium  2018

Demolition womanhood curated by Commonwealth and council, Tin Flats, Los Angeles CA, 2018

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Curated by Katy Grannan, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2015

Lovely Dark curated by Jack Pierson, Reagan Projects, Los Angeles, CA, 2015

Lovely Dark curated by Jack Pierson, Danziger Gallery, New York, NY, 2015

Lovely Dark, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven CT, 2015

13 Artists, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven CT, 2014

GDBD presents Sticklip 2.0, Chicago IL, 2013

The Politics Of Seeing, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago IL,  2013

Mythologies, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago IL, 2012

Babtism (Solo Exhibition), Emory University, Atlanta, GA 2012

Veiwfinder,  The Eve Gallery, Pomona,  CA — 2011

The Chaffey Review 2011 (printed annual arts Journal) Rancho Cucamonga, CA  2011

Chaffey College Photo Show Fall 2011; The Wignall Museum Of Contemporary Art, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 2011

ARTicles, The Breeze Newspaper, Rancho Cucamonga CA, 2010

The Chaffey Review 2010 (printed annual arts journal) Rancho Cucamonga, CA 2010

Amazing! Startling! Shocking!(Juried Student invitational Exhibition) The Wignal Museum of Contemporary Art, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 2010

All In, The Eve Gallery, Pomona, CA 2010

Publications

Aperture Magazine, Los Angeles Issue, 2018

New York Magazine, Editorial commision for The Cut, 2018

Art Review Magazine, Review of “Them Boys” 2018

Chicago magazine. Featured exhibition, 2016

Paper safe magazine. Featured artist, International photography publication, 2016

Self publish Be Happy, featured artist. Online photography publication, 2016

Time Out magazine Chicago, featured artist and contributed, 2016

The New Yorker. featured artist, New York, 2015

Time Magazine, online exhibition feature, 2015

Vice Magazine, Featured artist, New York NY, 2015

Complex Magazine, Contributer, Los Angeles CA, 2011

The Source Magazine, Contributer, Los Angeles CA, 2011

Visiting Artist and lectures

NIU Photography program visiting artist program, 2015

UIC Photography program visiting artist, 2016

Public Collections

The High Museum, Atlanta GA,

Emory University

California Museum of Photography, Riverside CA

Yale University, New Haven CT

Art space New Haven, New Haven CT